Paris Fashion Week: At Undercover, a fractured fairy tale

Something wicked this way comes. That was what entered the mind upon seeing the giant, polished red cherry sculptures on the runway at Jun Takahashi’s show. Was it forbidden fruit? Was the big bad wolf coming around the bend? Were we headed for a big fall? All of the above.

From the first look, it became clear that the designer of the cult Japanese fashion label Undercover was going to be musing on the fractured fairy tale that is childhood.

Key pieces: Princess-like dresses puffed up with crinoline skirts, worn by models fitted with sinister wings. Jackets and raincoats that flickered with digital cartoon scenes. (Too bad Disney didn’t think of that kind of wearable technology -- or maybe it has.) Print looks covered in scenes from Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.” “Black Swan”-meets-biker-girl dresses and skirts in tulle, leather and lace, which were quite lovely. Fierce-looking knuckle duster rings shaped like doorknockers. Ballet flats with cherries on top. Cherry-shaped purses.

The verdict: Takahashi is a consummate storyteller, one of the great voices bringing to fashion more than meets the eye. And the end of the fractured fairytale of childhood is of course, the inevitable: As hard as we try to hold tight the cartoon fantasies, princess dresses and cherry purses, we all grow up, have our wings clipped and have to face the dark, dangerous world. Except, perhaps, during fashion week.

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